Empty

       More Letters From Paradise
                Empty

It haunts me still, after watching a BBC film showing the visit by a Canadian photographer to an empty Jewish school in Slovakia.

The school was abandoned by order of the Nazis. And the schoolroom is shown as it was when the students left it in 1942. No one  ever returned.

Bookshelves filled with decaying books. Curling pages covered with Hebrew print, and hanging from the ceiling a single clear lightbulb. Desks covered with dust and neglect.

Why, you may ask was this school building  abandoned and ignored? The answer is simple. This was a Jewish school. There was nothing there to loot. But they were wrong. There was treasure to be found on the shelves of decaying books. The heritage and beauty of a culture the Nazis could not destroy.

      Aloha
      Grant